News

Cleveland (June 9, 2009) - The Board of Trustees of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture (CAC) has approved fifty-five awards totaling $825,695 for the 2009 cycle of its annual Project Support (PS) Grant program. The awards, which will support projects in locations throughout Cuyahoga County, range in value from $1,000 to $50,000. They were announced today during a meeting of the CAC board. To date, CAC has approved grants totaling $17.3 million this year bringing the total of approved funding to more than $33.5 million since CAC’s inception in April 2007.

2009 Project Support grantees represent the program’s second cycle and follow its inaugural (2008) class of awards, which went to fifty-four organizations. 2009 grantees—all of which received the full amount of their grant request from CAC—were selected from among sixty-three eligible applications scored during a two-day public panel review held April 29-30, 2009 at the Idea Center at Playhouse Square in Cleveland. Panelists included eight arts and cultural professionals from outside Ohio.

“We have been able to extend the reach of CAC by making grants to twenty-five organizations that will receive Project Support funds for the first time,” said Meg Harris, CAC interim executive director. “These twenty-five along with our thirty “repeat” grantees exemplify the exceptional diversity of this county’s arts and cultural sector and its vital presence in so many communities.” Ms. Harris continued, “The creativity of the 2009 projects and the competence of those who will carry them out assure us that CAC’s investment will hold meaning not only for audiences and participants who are directly involved, but also for those touched by the valuable economic impacts they will generate for Cuyahoga County’s cultural tourism industry.”

Descriptions of selected projects as well as a complete listing of 2009 PS grants follow this release.

In other recent CAC news, the CAC Board of Trustees has selected trustee Christopher M. Coburn to fill the office of Vice President, replacing Santina Protopapa whose tenure on the CAC board ended on March 31, 2009. Steven A. Minter and David Bergholz will continue in their respective roles as board president and secretary. Rounding out the five-member board are Vickie Eaton Johnson, executive director of Fairfax Renaissance Development Corporation and Sari Feldman, the executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library. Both were appointed to three-year terms effective April 1, 2009.

Cuyahoga Arts and Culture makes grants using public funds to support Cuyahoga County’s arts and cultural sector and the valuable contribution arts and culture makes to children’s learning experiences as well as to the county’s appeal and economic vitality. CAC revenues are generated by a levy approved by Cuyahoga County voters in November 2006. Meetings of the CAC’s five-member Board of Trustees are regularly held the second Tuesday of each month and are open to the public.